flutter in her tummy as she headed for the dining room, he always looked so regal in his high-collared suits. It would be nice to appear for once in something less casual. And it would be gratifying if he at least approved.
He had the hard-on from hell. One look at the vision that had just entered the room and it was a wonder it hadn’t bodily dragged him across the room. God, but he wanted her!
He forced his hungry mouth into a smile as he poured her a glass of champagne. ‘You look—ravishing.’
She actually blushed, and stumbled delightfully over something she’d been going to say, ratcheting up his hunger tenfold. Was she so unused to compliments? She was a goddess in that dress, needing no jewellery when her blue eyes sparkled like sapphires. And if she was a goddess in it, he couldn’t wait to see her out of it.
Soon, he assured the ravenous beast bucking for release. Soon.
‘The dress is lovely, thank you.’ She headed uncertainly towards him, taking the circuitous way round as if interested in the photographs lining the mantelpiece in the grand high-ceilinged room. She had to watch what she said. When he’d told her she looked ravishing she’d almost said, So do you.
But it was true. In another of those high-collared jackets, that fitted him like a second skin and showed off the tapering of shoulders to hip to magnificent effect, he looked like royalty.
He was royalty, she reminded herself. A count. With connections that went back for ever. Which reminded her of much safer territory than how good he looked right now …
‘Did you want to tell me about that theory of yours? About how the pages might have ended up in the caves below your castle?’
He handed her a glass of sparkling gold-tinged liquid and their fingers brushed, causing an electric jolt to her senses and her heart. The silver shoes, she figured, preferring to blame static electricity than take heed of the niggling worm of doubt lurking in the back of her mind.
He smiled down at her, as if he’d sensed her sudden discomfiture, and she was forced to meet his eyes and pretend unconcern, closing her lips before she could tell him he smelt ravishing as well, clean and masculine and all too addictive.
‘Pirates,’ he said simply.
She blinked up at him, lost in his scent, trying to regain hold of the conversation. ‘Why would pirates care about a few random pages cut from a book? Wouldn’t they be more interested in treasure and looting?’
‘Perhaps they didn’t care about the pages themselves, but the money they were paid to hide them. They would know where to secrete them to keep them safe from prying eyes. The caves beneath this castle were used by pirates for centuries, even while the first Counts were in residence. Perhaps someone paid them to find somewhere safe—somewhere the authorities would never find them. Somewhere they didn’t know the location of themselves.’
‘So they could never give it away if anyone asked …’ Her mind was working through the possibilities. ‘They must have known they could be lost and might never be found.’
‘It was no doubt a better option than to be burned outright. Little would have existed of the Salus Totus then.’
She looked up at him. ‘You sound like you care—like the Salus Totus really matters to you. Why do you care about these pages? You could have left them there and not told anyone. Nobody would have been any the wiser.’
Before he could answer the door swung open on Bruno pushing a trolley.
‘Ah, dinner is served,’ the Count said with a smile. ‘Please be seated.’
He put a hand to the small of her back to direct her, and she felt warmth and heat and an instant connection. It was utterly innocent, she was sure, and the fabric of her dress was separating them, and yet she had never felt anything quite so shockingly intimate. Did he have any idea what that low touch did to her? How it stirred her in secret places and moved her to remember a kiss that had near wrenched her soul as well as her defences away?
She swallowed, some of her earlier confidence trickling away. She was leaving tomorrow but that still left tonight. Why had she thought it would be such a breeze? What if he’d planned dinner to be one long assault to her senses? The brush of his fingers when he’d handed her the glass, the touch of his